"Necessary improvements" to be made at Bourne Community College following Ofsted inspection
An “inviting” secondary school has been praised for its inclusion during an Ofsted inspection which also highlighted a number of improvement areas to focus on.
The Ofsted report for Bourne Community College, located in Park Road, Southbourne, has been published today (February 5) following an inspection last month.
Recent changes with Ofsted means school reports are now presented differently with each criterion being ranked: Exceptional, strong standard, expected standard, needs attention or urgent attention.
The college’s latest report has outlined that inclusion and personal development are being delivered at the expected standard, while achievement, attendance, curriculum and teaching, and leadership need attention.
The inspection said: “Pupils are happy and safe in this inviting community school. Pupils enjoy the many opportunities they have to enrich their learning and to widen their experiences.
“Generally, pupils enjoy their lessons and have positive attitudes to their learning. Mostly, they respond well to the routines and expectations that staff have of them. However, sometimes teaching activities are not well matched to pupils’ needs, and as a result, some pupils do not achieve as well as they could.”
The report highlighted that staff build positive relationships with students and parents, and leaders are “knowledgeable” about supporting pupils with special educational needs.
The college also makes necessary adjustments to ensure all SEN students succeed and priorities are also established to help disadvantaged children.
Meanwhile, achievement is an area that has been flagged within the report, with inspectors finding pupils “do not consistently achieve as well as they should in national examinations.”
“In some subject areas, there are indicators that current pupils are achieving more securely. However, in other curriculum areas, there are persistent trends of underachievement that do not show sufficient signs of improvement”, the report explained.
Maths and reading is a priority and there is a strong foundation which aids them during the next steps in their learning, but the delivery of the curriculum across the board has been described as “variable”.
The inspection continued: “Sometimes, teaching approaches do not enable pupils to learn sufficiently well. Leaders are accurate in their assessment of where teaching is effective and where it needs to improve.
“However, the actions they take to address less secure teaching are not currently having the necessary impact to bring around rapid improvement.
“Typically, teachers have secure subject knowledge and explain new learning clearly. They teach the curriculum in an appropriate sequence that is designed to help pupils build knowledge over time, However, there is variability in how well staff use assessment to adapt their teaching choices.”
The inspection has outlined that the school have some areas to improve on and leaders check their attendance strategy, understand the impact of their work accurately and embed effective teaching across the school.
Safeguarding measures have been met and staff have “established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility”.